


Tacos in the Snow

by DDDragoni



Series: Tacos on Siesta [2]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Unlimited Tacos (Blaseball Team)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27693077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DDDragoni/pseuds/DDDragoni
Summary: During the Grand Siesta, the Unlimited Tacos decided to take their new Chariot on a cross-country road trip to visit their scattered former teammates. During this trip, they receive a message calling them out to  the middle of the woods, forcing the Los Angeli natives of the team to deal with something new and alien- snow.
Series: Tacos on Siesta [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025218
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Tacos in the Snow

"aCHOO!!" Basilio Mason rubbed his gloved hands together, the cold air biting at the exposed skin on his face as he and the rest of the Unlimited Tacos trudged single-file through the snowy forest. "Are you sure we're in the right place?" he shouted ahead of him, pulling his coat tighter around himself.

At the front of the line, Sexton Wheerer looked away from the phone in his hands and hollered back. "Definitely. The coordinates we got were very specific. We should be there in a couple minutes" On Sexton's back, Peanut Bong murmured quietly and clung tightly to the centaur’s mane. Behind them walked Valentine Games, hands in his pockets as they stoically observed her surroundings. Next in line was Basilio Fig, their leaves rustling in the breeze as they watched Halexandrey Walton romp around in the snow to the side of the makeshift trail. After Fig came Vito Kravitz, his leather jacket hanging open as always, and after him was McDowell Mason, with Rat Mason perched on his shoulder.

And bringing up the rear was Basilio Mason, absolutely miserable. “When you said it was in the middle of the woods, I thought we’d at least be able to drive there, not be stuck trudging through this frozen wasteland.”

Vito chuckled. “What’s the matter, California boy can’t handle a little snow?”

“That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have skin.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

“Yeah, it is a me problem. Me, Peanut, and Val. We don’t have fur, or an insulated trunk, or an immunity to frostbite, and it’s COLD!”

Peanut looked back towards the rest of the group. “Uh huh. If we’re out here too much longer I think my head’s gonna freeze...”

Basilio gave Vito a pointed look. “See, he gets it! Val, how about you? How are you handling this cold?”

Valentine let out a long, slow exhale, watching her breath drift off into the sky. “The cold is more than the absence of warmth. It is a force all its own. It pulls at the heart and weakens the flesh. To master it, you must first master yourself. Only then can you strike back at the frost.” She paused for a moment, then looked back at Basilio. “Also there’s healing pads in the lining of my coat.”

“Settle down back there,” Sexton called out. “We’re here.”

* * *

The trees thinned out as the trail widened into a large clearing, revealing a collection of old tires, upright sheets of corrugated metal and plywood, and other debris scattered about the area.

“What the hell is this?” Basilio said as he took in the sight. “Is this some kind of prank? Did we get sent to some old garbage dump?”

“I don’t think so,” said Sexton. “If it was a dump all this stuff would be all over the place, not sticking up out of the snow. There’s definitely some sort of pattern here.”

“No, I’ve seen these before,” Rat said, climbing down from McDowell’s shoulder. “This is-”

Vito cut Rat off. “Whatever it is, do you think we could get some of these tires back?” He asked, inspecting one of the piles. “Some of these would look pretty nice on-”

Before he finished, Vito was interrupted by a flying wad of snow, the force of the impact sending his glasses flying and his skull spinning. “It’s a battlefield!” Rat shouted. “EVERYONE GET DOWN!”

Basilio dove behind the nearest barricade as the air was suddenly filled with a barrage of snowballs. Rat scurried up next to him amongst the staccato beat of incoming projectiles against the plywood. “People build these things all over the hills around LA, usually for paintball or airsoft. Guess they work for snowballs too!”

“Great, love the trivia, what do we do about it?” Basilio looked around at the rest of the team. Peanut and Sexton had taken cover behind McDowell, who was using his massive arms to shield his face, Fig was doing a surprisingly good job blending in with the surrounding trees, Hex was leaping around and trying to catch snowballs out of the air, Vito was using his skeleton talents to play dead, and Val had straight-up vanished. Poking his head around the barricade, he caught a glimpse of their assailant scurrying between cover, but with all the snow in the air all he could see was a set of several metallic legs.

“We’ve gotta get around the side!” Rat said. “If we can get out of the line of fire we might be able to regain the element of surprise!”

“Yeah, okay, sure, lead the way.”

Rat peeked their head around the far side of the barricade. “Okay, stay low.” They waited for a lull in the barrage, they scampered across the open space to a wall on the far side of the arena and motioned for Basilio to follow. 

He sighed. “This is a brand-new jacket,” he muttered to himself before throwing himself to the ground and crawling as fast as he could to where Rat was waiting. The two of them continued in this pattern, moving across the battlefield whenever an opening appeared, the first coming as Sexton grabbed Peanut and made a mad dash for the one piece of cover large enough to hide him, and their second when Vito tried to sneak over to his glasses and was absolutely buried. When McDowell made an attempt at return fire only for it to be blasted out of the air, Basilio and Rat made the last dash to a stack of tires just in front of their target’s position.

“Alright, you got this!” Rat said, patting Basilio on the ankle as they crawled inside one of the tires.

“ _I_ got this? What happened to *we*?”

“I’m six inches tall, what exactly do you expect me to do? This is your moment, go get ‘em!”

“Fine, fine.” Basilio took a moment to steady his breath, then sprinted around the tires, letting out a half-frenzied, half-panicked cry as he charged forward, launching himself through the barrage, eyes closed, until he felt impact and carried the assailant with him to the ground.

The battlefield went quiet, the impact of snow against metal, wood, and flesh replaced with the crunching of snowy footsteps as the Tacos slowly began to reconvene. Basilio, breathing heavily, looked down at the metallic casing of his recent adversary and former teammate, Pitching Machine. “PM, dude- did you seriously call us all the way out here for an ambush?” In answer, Pitching Machine whirred and launched a small glob of snow from its spout directly into Basilio’s face. “Great. Alright, come on now, get up.” Basilio stood, brushing snow from his clothes as PM gathered its six crab-like legs beneath it and rose to meet the rest of the team.

“So this is the famous Pitching Machine?” Val said, casually emerging from a nearby snowbank. “It’s a lot more... animate than you described.” 

Sexton trotted up next to them. “Yeah, the legs are a new development,” he said as he lifted Peanut off his back to the ground. “I had to carry it out to the mound in the back half of Season 8. Looking good, PM!”

PM revved its wheels and scuttled between Sexton’s legs, circling the centaur in a joyous figure eight. Hex ran toward it, wagging her tail and barking, and it slotted one of the blaseballs from the rack on its side and launched it for her to chase, which she did with gusto.

“Let me introduce you to our new players. Meet Valentine Games and Peanut Bong. Val and Peanut, this is Pitching Machine.”

Val raised two fingers in a brief greeting. Peanut walked up to Pitching Machine and stuck his gloved hand out for a shake. “Nice to meetchya!” PM briefly stopped its skittering and stood in front of Peanut, motionless—and handless. “Oh, right. Uh...” Peanut tentatively reached out and patted PM on its carapace. It chittered happily, hopping up and down for a moment before resuming its excited scuttling through the assembled Tacos.

“Hey, hold still for a moment.” Rat walked a quick circle around PM, inspecting its new legs. “These are some impressive mods, who put this together?”

_whrr chk chk whrr_

“Oliver? Yeah, this looks like his handiwork. You’ve done good for yourself, PM, I’m real proud!” Rat paused for a moment, then turned back toward the Tacos. “So... what does everyone say to a rematch?”

Basilio raised an eyebrow. “A rematch? Are you serious?”

“Sure! We got clobbered because we weren’t expecting a snowball fight, but now that we’re on even footing I’m sure we can-”

_vrrrrrrrr_

The Tacos slowly looked over at Pitching Machine as its wheels started to rev up and its intake port slowly dipped down towards the snow.

“GET TO COVER!” Basilio hollered. The Tacos all leapt for the nearest obstacle to them, gathering up snow and making plans for a counteroffensive as Pitching Machine’s head swiveled, snowballs flying in every direction, and the cold was the last thing on anyone’s mind.


End file.
